


Bring Me out of the Dark

by Nuria123



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alien Invasion, Alternate Universe - Human, Apocalypse, Descriptions of wounds and injuries, Eventual Happy Ending, Eventual Romance, Fake Science, Fear, M/M, Mentions of past abuse, Mild Sexual Content, On Hiatus, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Scientist Thor, but also not really angsty, implied internalized homophobia, this is not really happy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-28
Updated: 2019-12-25
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:34:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 14,935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21596935
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nuria123/pseuds/Nuria123
Summary: There was a time where everyone believed that that was it, the end of humanity had arrived. Loki remembered the news still, even if the years had started to wash away his memories: the flashes of red on the tv screens and the constant warnings of “don’t go outside, ration food and water and keep quiet.” The panic Loki felt was still there. He remembered the look on his brother’s face as he held his newborn daughter tight to his chest. He remembered the people who knocked at their door and pleaded to stay with them. He remembered the sudden silence throughout the house and the farm.He still heard the gunshots that were fired against things he had never imagined could be real.They were called the chitauri on the radio. They were small, dangerous beings that could stand on two and four legs and had venom that could kill within hours. But as the venom worked itself through the body, it took over; the pain and hallucinations began. Those poisoned began to wander around and attack other people despite relationships. They were mindless and terrifying.
Relationships: Loki/Thor (Marvel)
Comments: 11
Kudos: 33
Collections: Thorki Big Bang 2019





	1. chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> It is finally here!
> 
> A huge thanks to @Starkissed1 for betaing this so last minute!  
> Art will be added soon so look out for that!
> 
> This is the first time I have ever managed to stay focused and finishing such a big project, this has been one of the toughest years in my life and I'm so happy I can say I accomplished this.
> 
> Chapters will come every week or a couple of days between
> 
> enjoy and mind the tags!

“You seen these?” Thor pointed towards the bullet holes in the wall. “There’s so many of them.”

“Yes, noticed them from the outside, and there are blood stains here.” Loki was crouching down near the altar, lightly placing his fingertips over the old stains. It was lucky they were old. A reddish brown had seeped into the carpet and stained it. Loki wouldn’t even begin to try to piece out what had happened, not with this many bullet holes and stains on the floor.

“Shit…” Thor swore, his voice echoing in the small church. A small, but still very intact, church seemed to be in better shape than any of the other buildings they had walked past earlier that day. It still had drapes over most of the windows, which also were intact except for a few cracks. There was dust laid thick over some of the benches and burnt down candles were still in their candleholders.

“Do not swear inside a church. Didn’t your mother teach you manners?” Loki snapped at Thor, probably hurting the man by mentioning family as he seemed to have been alone for quite a while before Loki found him wounded. Or maybe he still had family, Loki hadn’t cared to ask. He didn’t want the sob story he constantly heard on these trips.

“She did,” said Thor and that was it, no more context, and that was fine by Loki. He didn’t really care. His mission was to find friendly people like Thor who were alone and take them back to camp.

Loki didn’t really care what this Thor did while they were together, as long as he kept his distance and asked few questions. Thor had been injured and had to be close, but he talked, a lot. Not that he talked about anything in particular, but Thor was not fond of silence. He had only managed to be quiet for five minutes when the pain in his arm was too much.

And Loki could understand that. He had felt that exact pain, in the exact same place. The thought of it made his hand reach for the covered scar on his forearm —t he black crackling scar that followed his veins and skin. The venom had painted a bad version of a Rorschach test.

_ What do you see Loki? A butterfly or an ugly moth? _

Thor moved across the room again. He had been studying the bullet holes along the walls that faced the road towards the village. His clothes rustled in the eerie silence.

Loki hadn’t noticed the storm arriving before he found Thor, but Thor had already begun to brace himself, not knowing if he could survive the distance to a safer place. But Loki had shown up just in time and given him the care he needed to get to his feet and stumble through the village trying to look for a building with a roof that didn’t look like it would cave in any minute.

Thor had to drag himself to the building though. He had been in and out of consciousness for a while before Loki arrived to save his life. Now, even if he looked tired and worn out, at least he was up and walking around. He shuffled through the rows to the middle aisle and walked to the altar. The stained carpet muffled his steps.

Loki looked up from where he was crouched on the floor, eyeing the other man with his arm in a makeshift sling trying to coordinate his limbs so he could sit on a worn down and dusty wood bench that had been pushed up close to the altar. Thor seemed peaceful for a minute as he looked at the nearly perfectly intact painting of Jesus Christ himself hanging on the cross. The way Thor was looking made Loki curious, “Are you religious?”

Thor shrugged, “My mother wanted me to find out for myself, but my father always dragged me to our local church.” Then Thor was silent, now looking down at his lap and fiddling with the zipper of his jacket. “Are you?”

“No.”

Thor chuckled, filling the space with the echo of Thor’s laugh —t he sound of happiness in an unhappy situation. “You’re not a talker, are you?”

“No.” Loki stood up and dropped his bag onto the closest church bench. “I told you two things when I found you: one, as long as you listen to me and don’t have any bad business, I will take you back to a safe place; and two, that you can’t ask a lot of questions.”

“Why?”

“Why, what?” Loki placed the military grade weapon on the same church bench. 

Thor shrugged, like the question was obvious, “Why can’t I ask questions? For what I know you could be a murderer.” He smiled, a goofy grin that did not make sense at all. He sat in a church with a feral storm on its way made by mother nature herself, with his arm partially bitten off and in constant pain, with a stranger he didn’t know and asking questions if said stranger was in fact a murderer. How could the man sit there and smile?

Maybe it was the expression on Loki’s face that made Thor begin to talk again, or maybe it was the fact that it had been quiet for more than ten seconds. Loki didn’t even comprehend the first sentences coming from him. “… and I just think it’s odd that a stranger that saved my life would be a murderer.”

“What?” Loki’s eyebrows nearly met at the middle with how hard he was frowning. He hadn’t met such a talkative refugee since this hell had started.

Thor just chuckled, “No, forget it. I just want to know why I can’t ask questions.” He straightened his back a little and tried to get more comfortable on the wooden bench.

“Because I said so, and as you have already noticed,” Loki rolled his shoulders. “I am  _ not _ talkative.”

It did not matter if Loki stayed quiet, Thor still talked. He filled the void of silence within the church.

When the storm rolled in, the church echoed with the sounds of rain dripping from the gutters along the roof and the wind singing through the eaves. The building groaned and the wooden walls creaked with the wind. Small gusts of wind made it through the cracks of the windows and the holes in the wall. Only then was Thor silent, sitting close to a window that was slightly open, listening to the rage outside.

Loki eventually lay down on one of the church benches, trying to get comfortable and trying to not feel the creeping feeling as the storm grew heavier outside.

With all the things mother nature was good at, one of them was making storms, and even Loki was lulled to sleep by the singing winds and the rain tapping at the ceiling.

-~*~-

The first thing Loki noticed was the light. He shot up despite the aching in his muscles and grabbed his assault rifle. First he looked around, noticed the old blood stains and bullet holes again, noting that they were still only old. His bag laid untouched where he had put it, he looked to the door to find it completely open. He squinted, dread filling his body as he silently got up on his feet. Why hadn’t he woken up when the doors were opened? They had awfully old hinges and had creaked when he and Thor had closed them yesterday. Loki got his bag and quietly got it over his head so it rested at his shoulder.

The muscles in his back ached and his left arm was slightly tingling from sleeping on it. He moved over the carpet as silent as he could on the old wooden floor. The benches had chips shot off from the bullets that were once fired inside the room and they looked like wounds. 

The church was quiet, and so had the village been, awfully quiet. Maybe Thor had just decided to wander off, maybe he had started to hallucinate. Loki couldn’t see much as the sun blinded him. He pointed the weapon towards the door just in case and walked silently towards the door. 

Maybe Thor got killed. Maybe one of those things had gotten inside during the night and only took Thor. 

But as Loki walked towards the door and his eyes adjusted to the sunlight, he saw the silhouette of Thor just sitting there. 

Thor sat in the light, slightly leaning against the doorframe. His one shoulder was tense, probably from the wound.

Loki had forgotten to give him painkillers.

The silhouette of Thor seemed to be glowing; a halo surrounded him. His greasy, dirty hair looked like dusty gold and his filthy clothes drowned in the light making them look like they were newly washed.

The sun was shining bright, like it knew it was Thor who basked in it.

Loki walked towards him with confident steps. Even if his muscles weren’t so fond of that, he could not show such a silly weakness as aching muscles. They were clearly not under any attack, and Loki was just about to yell at him for making Loki think they were under attack. 

Thor reacted slowly, tilting his head backwards before raising his good hand towards his lips.

“Shush, don’t scare the deer.” He whispered and then pointed towards the yard. And yes, there it was. A deer with an old wound on one of its back legs, lightly grazing on a small patch of green grass near the entrance of the church.

Whatever Thor saw in a deer grazing was not the same as what Loki saw. Loki counted the meals they could get from it, and tried to find a good spot to kill it instantly. He lifted his weapon and shot it.

It went down with a thud and the idyllic morning Thor was experiencing got ruined as harsh reality hit him.

“Why did you do that!?” Thor wobbled up onto his knees and winced as he leaned the wounded arm against the doorframe.

“Thor,” Loki rolled his eyes and got Thor down to sit again. “I come from a camp where we have children and people who need medical assistance. We may have a lot of resources, but food is always an issue.” Loki fished out some painkillers and a new bandage from his bag, before pointing towards the deer, “And that venison can feed many in our camp.”

Thor looked at the deer again, with sadness in his eyes.

Maybe Thor never had been hunting, maybe he was a city boy. While Loki was dressing his wounds, he could determine that Thor was in his early twenties, maybe even mid-twenties. How had he survived to get here, with his greasy, shoulder-length hair, scruffy beard and blood-stained clothes that looked scavenged from a house or from the dead? Maybe he came from one of the smaller quarantine zones that had been established early on?

Only after standing back up and checking over Thor, did he walk over to the deer. It was average, nothing like what some of the hunters brought back to camp, but it would do. Loki looked it over, a white-tailed doe. But something was off, the coat was different, like it was graying. It had foam at the mouth and even its eyes looked filmy, like it had died earlier.

“I think it’s dead Loki!” Thor laughed from the entrance to the church. Loki glared back, the painkillers had begun to take effect.

Loki turned his gaze back to the doe and followed the graying patterns down to its back leg, right in the middle of the vague pattern, like a chaotic web, was the wound. Black.

He shrugged, they tested all the animals before they got butchered and eaten. The worst thing that could happen was that it had been sick and would have to be over cooked for safety.

“Do you have everything you need for the trek back to the car?” Loki asked as he started to drag the deer to a better spot. Not even looking at Thor.

“Uh, all my stuff is back in the place you found me,” he paused for a second, “I hoped we could go back and get them.” Thor gestured towards the village. Loki followed the gesture with his eyes.

Loki shook his head, “No, we are going to the car and then straight to camp.” 

“I need it. It’s important,” Thor pleaded shifting around trying to prop himself up so he could stand.

It was too risky, Steve had told him before he had driven here that the hunters reported multiple sightings of those small monsters. And Loki didn’t want to run the risk of getting caught in an attack with someone who could barely stand. “I don’t care if it’s important. I want this place cleared before anyone retrieves anything from back there.” Thor moved again trying to get up on his own. He was clearly struggling. “And you are in no condition to fight if we have to.”

Thor was still trying to get up, climbing up from his sitting position to something that could be described more as a leaning instead of actual standing. “Fine, as long as I get it back” He finished and he grunted which made Loki look closely at him. Thor was clinging to the doorframe with his good arm and trying to work his mind through the pain.

Maybe the painkillers were too weak for him.

“You need help?” Loki raised an eyebrow and continued to look at Thor with curiosity. He was slightly shaking and he was flexing his wounded arm a lot. “Thor.”

“No, I’m fine,” he huffed and got his feet properly under him. “Just needed a minute to catch my breath.” Thor smiled, looking far from good.

“You know, I think it’s better that I go get the car and drive here to pick you up. You are in no shape or form to walk that far.”

“No Loki, I can walk!” Thor then proceeded to walk down the old wooden steps of the entrance and stand there. “Please, I’ll walk.” Thor’s eyes looked around. Loki knew he was afraid, the man in front of him was quite an open book.

Loki shrugged once more and grabbed the doe. He could already tell this was going to be a long trip.

-~*~-

What could have easily been a 40-minute walk turned into a one and a half hour trip, with Thor’s slow pace and the deer weighing Loki down. Finally in the distance did he see the camouflaged car he had driven over here. The small solar panels were barely visible underneath the leaves. Loki just prayed that it had enough to last all the way back.

He glanced at Thor, who was drenched in sweat and his face was scrunched up in pain. Loki felt something prod at his heart and he slowed his own pace down. “If you wait here, I’ll get the car. It’s right over there, underneath the leaves.”

Thor looked up and then he nodded slowly. Loki lowered the deer from his shoulder down to the ground and then walked to Thor to sit him down on the closest crash barriers that lined the side of the road.

With the weight from the deer gone and Thor left to rest; Loki practically jogged to the car. He dragged the leafy cover off the car and started to roll it together. He threw his bag and the cover in the trunk before getting behind the wheel.

Thor looked grateful when Loki came driving back, his whole body seemed to loosen up and he fell asleep as soon as his head hit the seat.. He was too tall to really fit, but it didn’t seem to bother him too much.

Loki glanced around, feeling on edge. He got the deer in the trunk, too. It looked like it hadn’t been alive for days, rather than like it had died just a couple of hours ago. Loki frowned, it was odd. The silence, too, was odd.

The drive back to camp was uneventful, which made Loki’s shoulder relax and Thor’s snores more welcome.

-~*~- 

Loki sat in the old canteen; a bunch of old tables that once served as barricades were now spread evenly throughout the big room. They were stained by age. Half-washed off graffiti that was still visible on the surface of the tables matched the walls. Loki mused over the graffiti. There were many religious quotes and phrases of “death is near”. Some of them were meant as propaganda; some of them were a plea for help.

There was a time where everyone believed that that was it, the end of humanity had arrived. Loki remembered the news still, even if the years had started to wash away his memories: the flashes of red on the tv screens and the constant warnings of “don’t go outside, ration food and water and keep quiet.” The panic Loki felt was still there. He remembered the look on his brother’s face as he held his newborn daughter tight to his chest. He remembered the people who knocked at their door and pleaded to stay with them. He remembered the sudden silence throughout the house and the farm.

He still heard the gunshots that were fired against  _ things _ he had never imagined could be real.

They were called the chitauri on the radio. They were small, dangerous beings that could stand on two and four legs and had venom that could kill within hours. But as the venom worked itself through the body, it took over; the pain and hallucinations began. Those poisoned began to wander around and attack other people despite relationships. They were mindless and terrifying. Loki had dared to call them zombies once around his military  _ friends _ , and they had threatened to beat him up out of paranoia of a zombie apocalypse on top of an ongoing alien invasion.

Loki had more privileges in camp, his physique and his military background meant he was given more food to sustain the protection for the camp. Guards, children and the people working in the fields got bigger portions of food. Scientists and doctors got more equipment and could request scavenging places like labs, hospitals and pharmacies and other places that often were overrun by the Chitauri or those bitten and not yet dead. Scientists were the only ones who could travel outside camp with protection from the guards. Loki thought about the many runs he had to make with Tony Stark to try and find parts for cars and medical equipment. At the camp, it all worked out nicely in the end, the different roles got different things. This still made it as equal as it could get with their limited resources.

Loki spooned up more of the stew he had gotten and looked around the room. People usually sat along the windows or close to the doors. Maybe that was what an apocalypse did, made people herd around the few vantage points or exits? Loki, on the other hand, sat in the corner, far from the windows and far from the door. This kept him far from other people, like he always had done Before.

There were always so many people in the camp. Someone was watching the kids; someone was carrying supplies; someone was fixing buildings, vehicles or fences. There was always someone walking around or talking. The small camp was full of people; they had no where else to go. Outside the fences and patrolled zones was too dangerous.

It was exhausting.

The camp itself was a perfect spot. It used to be a mental institution set up by the nearby cities to house mentally ill people who couldn’t live in normal society. It was mostly self-sustaining; the fields and fences were already in place. There were big spaces for animals and a medical floor, as well as a storage room full of canned food. It even had hunting rifles in locked cabinets. While most of the electricity was from the power lines, some of it was from the dam on the river that cut through the property. Loki didn’t know the first people who got here, or who had found it, but it was one in a million chance to find this place.

Loki’s thoughts were interrupted when he heard footsteps. It wasn’t quite dinner yet, but he had talked to Volstagg who managed the food, and Loki had gotten his portion earlier, like he always did. The footsteps grew louder, and Loki wanted to sink into the floor. This and when he was sleeping were the only times that he was properly alone.

The feet stopped in front of the table. Loki knew the shoes and sighed before looking up. Thor smiled. He had also some of the stew and nodded towards the bench, “Can I sit?”

When Loki nodded Thor sat down with a huff, dragging his legs over the bench in an ungraceful manner. Thor had his arm in a sling still, this time with proper bandages and an actual sling. When they had arrived at camp and been cleared to enter, Loki had just dropped Thor on the medical floor and went back to the deer in the car. The deer was handed to the usual hunters so they could see if it was edible at all.

“Dr. Banner told me you also are immune?” Thor said as he tried to chew the vegetables in the stew at the same time. 

_ Graceful _ , Loki thought sarcastically. “Yes,” Loki simply answered while internally cursing Dr. Banner and his chattering.

“Dr. Strange said you survived being bitten twice?” Thor continued, this time with less vegetables. Loki nodded and started cursing Dr. Strange too.

And it was true, he had been bitten twice and survived, one time on pure accident and the other time was something he didn’t even want to think about. The scar itched every time he thought about it. He itched every time he thought about the teeth making themselves comfortable in his arm. He had walked around with a nearly blue arm for three months before the venom had been partially dissolved by his body.

“How?” Thor sounded suddenly very serious. Loki met his eyes for what felt like the first time since they’ve met. To Loki’s surprise, the eyes that met him were so blue, shining and serious. Loki knew nothing about Thor, but his eyes told a story. Hard and serious now, but the lines next to his eyes showed years of happiness and softness. Suddenly Loki wanted to know what had caused those lines, what had given Thor so much happiness and softness that it had been permanently engraved on his face..

“How?” Loki repeated slowly, “I have no clue Thor. Maybe it’s my immune system. How the hell am I supposed to know?” Loki’s blue eyes looked deep into Thor’s; Loki’s eyes told a different story, he knew. They told of a life facing fear. They told of years of military service. Loki had always been confused by his eye color, in some lights it appeared green and sometimes blue. His eyes were as confused as himself. Fear and confusion could mix so well.

Thor’s eyes softened and then he leaned back. A smile grazed his lips and he huffed a slight laugh. “I’m sorry, I just had to see how you’d answer.”

He said it like it was nothing, like this whole conversation was just a joke. Loki looked at Thor’s relaxed posture and his relaxed expression. It resembled the look a doctor would give you after they’d interrogated you about your eating and sleeping habits.

_ Do you get 6-8 hours of sleep? Enough nutrition? Do you, Loki? _

Loki looked into his stew, not feeling very hungry, but continued to eat it nonetheless. It was what you had to do in the apocalypse, eat even if you’re not hungry because suddenly this privilege could be gone. And you never knew when you would get to eat a good warm meal again, even if you had been able to eat regularly for the past 3 years.

Thor was silent for the next five minutes. Which, for Loki, was an even better privilege than a hot meal.

“Can I ask you for a favor?” Thor broke the silence, his voice slightly echoing into the open space of the old canteen. Loki sighed again and nodded but did not look up at him. “You remember where you found me?” Loki nodded again, the hair on his arms started to rise as a sinking feeling settled in his gut. “I need that bag I had with me, the one we had to leave behind.”

Loki shook his head, “No, not happening. I am not going back there until it’s clear.” Loki looked to the exit. He should get on with preparation for his next guard shift, get some sleep before night fell, psych himself up before he had to protect his home. “You have no right to ask me that. I barely know you. Ask Steve or Bucky, they are the ones who set up the guard schedules and who goes where. They’ll explain why we can’t go back there now.” Loki looked at his nearly finished stew, before shaking his head one more time. He got up, took the bowl and started walking away.

“No, please Loki!” Loki heard Thor scramble off the bench. “ _ Fan i helvete _ , don’t go. I know it’s dangerous, but I need that bag!”

Thor grabbed Loki’s shoulder, and before anyone could comprehend what was happening, Loki had already pinned Thor up against the closest wall with his arm up his back. Thor maybe sported more muscle, but Loki hadn’t been on the medical floor with a fever, nor did he have his left arm in a sling. “Don’t you dare touch me again,” Loki hissed, “I don’t know what’s so fucking important in that bag, but I am not risking it for some Swedish guy I don’t know. Leave me alone.” Loki released Thor and walked off. 

Volstagg, who entered the canteen when he heard the commotion, shouted after Loki as Thor slid down the wall and onto the floor groaning in pain.


	2. chapter 2

Loki had barely slept. His eyes stung as he yawned for what felt like the thousandth time. Steve had told him to only do half the night, after all the work he’d done with Thor and how taxing that had been, but Loki had refused. Being stubborn and having these few choices was what was left of the old life. He could choose stupidity and stand here for long hours. He could walk down the perimeter of the fence and just stare into the darkness, with his sleep deprived mind hallucinating shapes in the void and hearing sounds that weren’t there.

Loki stood watching the dark—the line where the lights just stopped and the darkness just started. Loki stared at what he knew was the beginning of a forest, a thick forest that was the perfect place for an unsuspected attack. Loki stared, and the darkness stared back, right into his very being. The void watching him made his stomach fill with heaviness, like lead.

_“Ya aren’t scared of the dark, are ya Loki? No soldier has such silly fears.”_

_-~*~-_

_«Jeg vil ikke, det er mørkt» (I don’t want to, it’s dark) Loki peaked back from the doorway and towards his brother. Hellblindi sat at the kitchen table eating his breakfast, bitterly shoving the watery oatmeal into his mouth and grumbling about the headlines in the newspaper._

_Loki’s voice made Hellblindi look up, the frown that was etched into his face looked darker than the path. “Gjør det ellers får du ikke mat» (do it or you will not get breakfast) with those words, he looked away, continuing with his breakfast and grumbling._

_Loki knew he meant it. He had gone without food many times because of unfinished chores or bad behavior. He turned back to the door. The cold seeped in from outside since the door was wide open._

_He had chores when he got up in the morning, go out to the barn, turn on the lights, get water for the horses and feed them. Then, go inside, eat breakfast, and get ready for school. It was that easy, but it never was for Loki._

_He stood at the barn door in the darkness of the Norwegian morning, listening to the hoofs of the horses stomping in the dark and hearing the small mice skittering around inside. He would peek through the old wooden door and only see darkness. It was always creeping at the edges of the door, and Loki would have to walk into it and over to the light switch across the little hallway._

_The wooden door was too heavy for the hinges so it would swing shut as you walked in, thumping heavily against the frame. Loki knew that it would happen, but he always got scared when he quietly walked over the concrete floor towards the light switch_

_He felt like someone or something was watching, staring in the dark as he walked into the unknown. His senses were heightened as fear coursed through his body. The mice sounded like big rats, ready to crawl up his skinny legs and bite him. The horses’ hoofs sounded like gunshots in the dark. He was certain that every second he spent in the dark he would be shot. He felt like he was suffocating every time; the darkness just engulfed him. It ate him whole._

_He would always make it to the light switch, and every time he held his breath. His chest clenched and he always ran like he feared life itself the last few meters._

_The horses were always a soothing sight when the lights flickered on._

Loki snapped out of it and opened his eyes. He heard footsteps behind him.

“Steve, if you bother me one more time,” Loki turned around slightly raising his gun, just to be a bit threatening not really planning on pointing it at someone. But, just as he locked eyes with the owner of the footsteps, the gun pointed towards the ground.

Thor.

“Hej,” Thor spoke softly. Loki was confused for a fraction of a second as the greeting processed in his brain. _Swedish._ Loki frowned and just nodded a slight greeting back. “Jag vill be om ursäkt för förut, jag menade det inte.” (I wanted to apologize for earlier, I didn’t mean to cause any trouble.)

“Ikke!” Loki hissed, looking around, and dragged Thor around the corner of one of the ‘fences’, which were really just conveniently placed storage units. He let go of Thor when they were just outside the ring of light that came from the camp. “Ikke snakk svensk til meg!” (Don’t speak swedish to me!)

“Varför? Jag tänkte det ville va en bra idé. För ingen fattar,” (Why? I thought it would be a good idea. Because no one understands) Loki raised a finger at Thor interrupting him. They both turned towards the open fence gate as a shadow moved across the opening. This time it was probably Steve wanting to bother him again about sleep.

“I don’t care what you think. I only communicate in English.” Loki stared at him, and tried to seem more threatening than he really was. More memories wrecked his thoughts as verbs and phrases suddenly started to drip into his brain, like unwanted snow on the back of your neck. It was bone chilling.

“All right, please,” Thor held up his good hand in a surrender and took some few steps back and into the light from the camp, making his once greasy dirty hair now shine like polished gold as it had been washed. If they had met in a different life, Loki thought, he might even consider Thor to be his type. “I just want to apologize; you are the only one here I feel I can have an actual conversation with.”

As Loki stood there, a couple steps away from the safe circle of light, he really looked at Thor: blond hair, strong features and awfully Scandinavian. Loki huffed a breath, in just a matter of a few months that breath would be visible, and he thought about the consequences of having an enemy in camp, or of being disliked. He started thinking about sacrifices and despair, even more memories flashed across his mind.

“Apology accepted,” he took long steps and went back into the light. He stood guard right where he was supposed to be for the next five hours. It would be five hours of staring into the darkness and a lot of yawning.

A sort of silence laid itself over them, the only thing really interrupting it was Thor’s shuffling. Loki spared a glance at him when Thor had settled and he found Thor sitting on the ground, pulling up some grass.

“What are you doing?” Loki eventually asked after Thor had made a little grass pile on his lap. It was a bit childish, but it made Loki suppress a smile.

_Small joys_

“Uh, keeping you company?” Thor didn’t look up from the grass pile as he started sorting them, shortest to longest.

“So, you are going to sit here for five hours,” Loki gestured a bit towards the pile, “rearranging grass?” Loki raised an eyebrow, ungroomed and untamed, no time for vanity.

Thor started to sort the grass differently and hummed as an answer. Loki just kept on watching the darkness.

Just as he was about to say something to Thor, to start a conversation to chase away the boringness, did Loki’s clock vibrate. Every guard on guarding duty had one, they did not make a sound, they only vibrated every third hour when they were turned on. Loki counted the vibrations. The number didn’t mean anything, but it calmed Loki nonetheless.

He hated night shift.

Loki started walking out of the light and towards the forest, when he heard a sudden shuffling behind him. “Where are you going?” Thor was at his side quicker than Loki’s mind could catch up.

“I have to patrol some trails in the forest,” he vaguely gestured towards where the beginning of the trail was, “and make sure the fence for the animals inside the forest is secure.” It was unusual to find chitauri gobbling down on an animal, as they tended to leave animals alone, but it was better safe than sorry. And Steve insisted, he always insisted.

Thor simply nodded and followed along, really, he shuffled along as he had fallen asleep during the 30 minutes he sat on the ground.

Loki stood before the beginning of the trail, breathing in as he turned on the light on his rifle. The only dangerous things out there were the chitauri, and he hadn’t had an encounter near the fences in over three months. It was going to be fine.

They walked in silence, its weight even heavier than before. Neither of them dared to say anything, both suddenly too afraid to draw attention to themselves.

The only sounds were their muffled steps and the occasional breath. Together with the forest sounds, a twig breaking here, leaves fluttering up amongst the tree tops, the plastic of Loki’s rifle clicking into place as he switched the safety switch to SEMI. It made him shiver every time, his hands shaky as he held the weapon up in front of him, focusing on where the light shone.

The fence came into view as they walked, Loki tried to see further into the dark. He tried to get his eyes to see in the dark, tried to make him less vulnerable.

These trips were usually walked as quick as possible, Loki never dared to stay any longer in the dark than he needed. Memories and distant voices all echoed through his head as he walked on the trail. He always felt fear, not for the chitauri, not for the possibility of other humans, but for the dark. The darkness was overwhelming for him. It was always too dark, too unknown. Things could hide there, under the blanket of darkness.

He felt safer now, with Thor’s breathing breaking the silence, the extra footsteps that followed his own, the rustling of someone else’s clothes, and the accidental touches as Thor sometimes walked a bit faster than Loki. For Loki, it seemed that Thor was carrying his fear with him, that Thor silenced the pressing thoughts about _what or who was there_.

“Do you hear that?” Thor suddenly whispered in Loki’s ear, Loki tensing ever so slightly, and the fear started to roar from the back of his mind. He stopped, held his breath and listened. It was faint. It sounded a bit like someone eating a very juicy peach. Slurping and gurgling, away in the distance. Loki tensed even more. 

Loki bent his knees; every step was calculated and silent. Every twig and leaf were avoided as the sound became stronger and louder. The darkness seemed to become so much blacker as Loki focused solely on the sound and following it. His heart beat in his chest, rapid punches to the inside of his ribcage. He went off the trail, signaling Thor to wait there, and began to walk towards the fence. It was hard to stay silent in the tall grass.

The fence was not broken, and when Loki touched it, he didn’t get shocked. The electricity was off.

_It climbed over or crawled under._

After some years of up-close experience, Loki had learned that the chitauri were not that sensitive to manmade light. They barely noticed the beams of white light from the rifles, or flashlights. So, Loki pointed his own rifle and light towards the noise. His whole body froze as he saw the poor sheep. 

A single, wounded, chitauri was eating from it, and the sheep was nearly black all over. Its mouth was foaming. There was thick black blood everywhere in the grass. Somehow, though the chitauri was eating, the sheep was still alive. It was breathing hard and the front legs kicked at the grass and creature. 

Loki stared, the horrifying image burning into his mind. He wanted to kill the sheep instantly, put it out of its misery, but he was transfixed. Usually, when the chitauri attacked the fence and the animals within the fence, they dragged one or two sheep from the pen and went to a safer location. When found, they were more alert and if they went uninterrupted, they would scuttle off quickly, only leaving a few bones and some wool. It was never like this. The alien was making loud noises. It was alone with a big wound on what would be its shoulder. And, it was messy. The whole alien was covered in its own venom.

A twig broke behind him and Loki whipped his head backwards to see Thor crouching next to him. Loki snapped his head back to the chitauri, his heart beating harder. It didn’t hear it. 

Thor crouched there, staring too, making a face Loki couldn’t quite read in the dark of his peripheral view. An eternity passed before Thor gently laid a hand on Loki’s shoulder, drawing Loki’s eyes from the alien to the man sitting next to him.

Thor leaned close to Loki and whispered as silently as he could, while still having Loki hear him correctly, “You can kill it now.”

It was like a command, an order from an authority. It made Loki slip into the man he was in the military. He focused again on the creature in front of them, just some few meters away. He nodded, mostly to himself, but he imagined Thor saw it and he pulled the trigger.

After, they stood there for many minutes, waiting to see if the chitauri had any backup. The ringing in their ears started to fade away and their breathing was more even. Thor still had his hand on his shoulder, Loki figured it was a way of keeping himself balanced with his left arm in a sling. 

Loki got up and Thor followed, over the fence and with cautious steps towards the dead alien. The darkness wrapped heavily around them. It reeked. The area around the sheep and the alien drowned in an oozing smell that Loki couldn’t even begin to describe. Thor was the first one to crouch next to the sheep, studying it. It was somehow still breathing, but its eyes were closed, and its feet weren’t kicking anymore.

He felt pity for the poor animal, a sudden wave of grief washed over him. A poor life, with a worse death, wasted to the teeth of a dying Chitauri. The guilt followed next, maybe he could have been here a minute or two before, and spared the sheep. Or maybe he could have killed them instantly instead of just staring. Thor had started to pet it, avoiding the dark spots and focusing on the dirty white wool. He hummed to the animal. 

Loki took a knife from his belt and handed it, handle first, to Thor. The gesture was met with confusion. Then Thor gently took the knife, and a stray finger brushed against Loki's own. Loki wanted to jump at the contact, wanted to pull away and stay at the same time. It was a simple, little, _gentle_ touch. Loki nodded towards the sheep, and walked another step towards the dead chitauri. He heard that Thor got what he was trying to say when the animal's labored breath stopped.

Before him, the creature had been wounded. It was skinnier than any other chitauri Loki had seen, and its mouth dripped with venom. Loki shivered, and proceeded to nudge it with his foot, like you do. 

It didn't move, but it did send out another wave of that awful smell.

“You think you can take that back to camp?” Thor suddenly said, his voice such a contrast to the stark silence. 

“You want to take it back?” Loki nudged it a bit harder, rolling it over on its back. It had been very wounded, two claw marks streaked over its chest and stomach. “It will make the whole place reek, and don’t get me started on how much this will scare the children.” 

Another silence stretched on as Thor looked over the sheep, making humming noises as he looked, sometimes poking at the blackened flesh with a stick he had picked up. 

“Yeah, I want to take the alien back,” Thor concluded and got back on his legs. “We should also get the sheep outside of the fence.”

Loki nodded once more, and looked down at his hands and clothes. He felt bad for people on laundry duty already. He started to think about what Thor could possibly want to do with the corpse of a wounded chitauri. He also thought it was weird that Thor seemed to know exactly what he was looking at as Thor dragged the sheep under the fence.

Loki had to tell Steve about the not electric, electric fence.

-~*~-

When you are in an apocalypse you tend to not care about vanity, entertainment and other such things. You think about rations, water supply, the constant worry of something watching you. But humans got to human, and surviving was boring.

Plain surviving was so boring that people clung to the small joys of the world. If someone saw a butterfly with a slightly crooked wing, they’d be thinking about it for days because that was a small joy to see in a world filled with danger. That a little creature, as fragile as a butterfly is, could still survive and show off its beautiful colors, even with a crooked wing.

For Loki, Thor was his not-so-small joy. Their friendship started out sour, but as days went by and Thor was always around, spreading his own joy to others, playing with the kids as much as he could with his arm in a sling, Loki started to warm up to him. Because Thor could distract even the quietest person in camp and make them laugh, or at least smile. And Thor latched onto Loki because Loki was like a wall he could support himself on, strong and steadfast, and also, because he genuinely liked Loki.

Thor usually tried to stay awake during some of the night shifts Loki was on, and they talked. They talked about nothing and everything: how stars were made, what movies they had liked, what tv show tropes were bad or good. Loki found quickly out that Thor loved science, he loved romance and comedy in movies and shows, he wasn’t a big fan of sport, but he could play a good football game if that opportunity ever presented itself. 

They also helped around camp together. They helped Volstagg move containers of water up to the canteen, and they helped Tony with heavy car batteries that needed fixing. People around camp started to notice their friendship, and usually found Thor close to Loki, or vice versa.

It was this simple friendship that stirred something within Loki, a faint trickle of memory that he didn’t really pay much attention to. A bit of his mind just stored it away and suppressed it, until he didn’t think of it anymore. Whenever he caught Thor looking a bit to starry-eyed at him he felt it, something faint in the back of his head. Whenever he sat around the fire during the evenings, he tried not to laugh too much at Thor’s awful jokes and a bit too funny to be true stories from his childhood home in Sweden.

Thor also made the faint memory clearer when he touched Loki and Loki, for the first time in many years, didn’t mind the touch. He didn’t flinch or move away. Rather, he soaked up the warmth coming from the touch, leeching whatever comfort it gave when the brutality of reality got too much. 

Sometimes they ate together, if sometimes is all the time, and they continued to eat before the others. Sometimes they sat in silence or shared news of what was happening around the camp.

“Heard Steve talk about the fence being up and running,” Thor said as he forked some bland salad off his plate.

“Yeah, tested it with Bucky the other night.” Thor snickered at that and Loki glared, “stop that, it was Bucky who said I should touch it.” The glare continued even as he shifted his gaze towards the plate in front of him.

The meal today was a much greener one than usual. More salad than meat, which could mean that they had started to ration out the meat for the winter, or that the hunts were unfruitful. So it was salad and some tomatoes, with some elk meat here and there.

“Have you seen what the hunters have brought in?” Loki asked, prodding at one of the small meat pieces. “I have been on guard duty on the north side. Can’t see anything inside camp.”

Thor grumbled a bit as he chewed, having gotten strict orders to talk only after he had swallowed. “The only things I have seen are rabbits, but they always complain about having to travel further away.”

Loki nodded, glancing out the boarded-up window, the sun was low in the sky, indicating that night was soon here. Autumn would bring darker, colder nights. “Heard Steve talk about that, and the possibility of having to send guards with them.”

After Thor’s appearance, the chitauri had begun to move again. It happened every now and then. In the beginning, they stayed where they had fallen from the sky, but after a few weeks they moved towards big cities and places filled with humans. It happened now too, even after nearly three years, the chitauri would move where the humans were. And in their case, that meant getting too close for comfort to the camp.

“You on night shift today?”

“Yes, this time at the front gate,” he paused and looked over at Thor again. “We are apparently waiting for Sam and some others to come back after a military drop down in the old quarantine zone near the docs.”

“I’ll meet you there,” Thor got up. This time he didn’t stumble, and this time he held the plate with the previously wounded arm. His blond hair fell in his face as he rose and Loki suddenly had the urge to brush it away.

-~*~-

Loki had his own room, another little privilege of being a night guard and having a camp in a big mental institution. While he loved the quietness and the freedom of privacy, he hated how lonely it got. When he slept, or tried to, he was faced with endless memories and endless scenarios he replayed in his head. He was exhausted every second of every day. Surrounded by people or surrounded by nothing was exhausting

Night shift was something Loki had lied about liking. It was just easier to lie than to tell the truth. Steve had asked about his preferences, trying to get every guard in the camp to be as comfortable as possible. Loki was already weak after the second bite and just out of recovery. Steve asking his preferences had caused Loki to make up a lie so he didn’t sound weaker than he already was. 

_Because what soldier is scared about something so silly as the dark?_

He had just been on patrol down the dirt road that stretched from the camp. Eventually it would end up in the village where he found Thor or a bigger city closer to the ocean called Hartport. Which to this day still served as a military drop site from the bigger quarantine zones further south. It took approximately six hours to get there, and if their timing was off, they had to wait before the drop came. As the batteries in the cars had started to get faultier as the years went by with the constant draining and charging, the time back to camp was always delayed. Sam and his entourage had been gone for three days.

And usually that wouldn’t be cause to worry. But with the constant complaining from the other guards who took longer patrol routes and the hunters who reported more and more activity around camp, it was beginning to look worse the longer they were outside.

Loki walked towards the gate. Behind him, the huge buildings towered up towards the stars. There were three buildings, one big one and two smaller ones. The big one was just called Building One. It was the most habitable, the most insulated and was easiest to move into three years ago. A few moldy walls and some windows that needed boarded up were all they had to deal with and it was as good as new. 

The two smaller ones were used for different purposes, Building Two was at the right when coming through the main gate and was mostly used for storage. It was cold, some of the roof had caved in and some of the floors was just not safe to be walking on. Building Three was the one that _had_ been the worst. Now, it served as more of a garage and a makeshift lab where things could be stored a good distance away from buildings One and Two. It was in good shape, now. 

Apparently, when people found this place, Buildings One and Two were abandoned. A shiver went down Loki’s spine, just thinking of the horror the finders of this place had seen. When building three had been opened, the inside had been filled with the dead—patients alongside nurses and other staff members. Loki hadn’t gotten much detail, but they had been trying to survive together inside Building Three and failed.

In front of the gate, right next to another guard who was going to patrol down the fence when Loki came back, was Thor. In the hazy light his hair glowed, like Loki always thought when light was behind Thor. It was so golden with the light as a backdrop. Loki thought about commercials Thor could star in. How the directors probably would have him somewhat shirtless, or at least sleeveless, and let his hair be illuminated by light. And if Loki had a camera that worked, that would be what he captured forever. The hazy light behind Thor, while Thor stood with a careless smile and his arms crossed over his chest.

Loki caught himself as his thoughts dumped more and more imagery about Thor. He shook his head and suppressed the warmth blooming in his chest. He could not do this now; he was supposed to be on lookout.

The other guard nodded towards Loki before walking off towards his own patrol route, leaving the two of them alone.

“Hey,” Thor smiled and stepped to the side so Loki could take his spot, like he had warmed it up with his mere presence. “You look a bit shaken up.”

“Yeah, not really a fan of the patrol routes.” Loki looked down at his shoes, then he found himself adding explanation, “They go through the forest, cover more ground”

Loki vaguely gestured towards the forest and looked over to Thor.

“You don’t like doing that?” His brows furrowed, and he looked a bit like he was hugging himself with his crossed arms as he looked towards the dark forest that flanked all the sides of camp.

“No.” Loki shifted slightly. He was uncomfortable. He felt weak. He felt judged. Thor was his only good friend in the camp, and after what Thor had experienced, he probably thought that Loki was this fearless warrior. Loki didn’t want to disappoint him; he didn’t want to see Thor’s face twist in judgement.

“I had a brother,” said Thor, finding his words. “He was terrified of the dark, he often woke me up to check on sounds. That eventually stopped, until the aliens came, but he always slept with the bathroom light on.” Thor huffed out a laughter as a small smile spread over his face. “What I am trying to say, I get it. Darkness does some weird things to reality.”

It shook Loki and his body froze. The amount of sincerity coming from Thor was new. After years of being told that his fear was stupid and that he should man up, he suddenly felt relief—relief for not having to be so secretive around Thor. He nodded and said a silent thank you.

“What happened to your brother?” Loki asked after a few minutes of silence, his voice barely there, you didn’t ask about family nowadays. It was a dangerous topic.

“He died,” Thor shifted, transferring his weight from one foot to the other. “Uhm, it was after I arrived here. His name was Baldur. We were in a group, a few weeks after we arrived he got bit.”

Loki nodded and stayed silent. He wanted to reach out, rub Thor’s arm, pat his shoulder, do something. But Loki couldn’t. A vulnerable person is a dangerous person, even If you know them well. The apocalypse does something to a mind. Loki settled for a “Sorry about your brother.”

The sound of cars interrupted the moment, and car lights at the end of the road caught Loki’s attention. The cars came closer and Loki’s shoulders went down when he saw the familiar cars. Sam and the rest were back. But he got tense again when he saw the claw marks along the sides of the cars. He noted the haunted expression on Sam’s face as they drove past.

Loki didn’t dare ask what happened. They were one person short.

-~*~- 

It was cold, too cold to just stand still. Loki had a thicker jacket on, and his fingers were numb as he held the rifle in his hands. It was cold too.

The military drop was successful. Sam and the others had gotten everything they needed: clothes, ammo, dried food, batteries, supplies in general that were produced in the quarantine zones, but they had been overrun on the trip back.

The grief was felt all over camp. It was a punch in the gut, as no one in the past six months had died. It was a reality check on what life truly was now. Loki didn’t know the man who had died. He had seen him of course, he was one of the guards, but Loki never talked actively with him nor did he know his name. 

Loki saw Steve coming his way, walking with the determination of a man fighting against the world. Steve had once been in the military, Bucky too. He was involved in politics and protested all kinds of stuff. Sometimes Steve caught himself rambling on how the government was run, how things were before. When he realized, he would get this odd look on his face, like he had single handedly let the world fall to pieces. It made Loki respect him more, a strong man with a lot of feelings, who could actively show them without fear.

“Hello Loki.” Steve stopped beside him and looked where Loki was supposed to look, “You have to switch nightshift with Bucky in three days, so you can take the long patrol route to the river post.”

“Why?” Loki stared hard at Steve. This wasn’t good. Loki never got the longer routes; he was always close to camp because he went into the small towns and helped people.

“Thor has requested that we get a bag in the town west of here,” Steve gestured vaguely in that direction. “Says there are some important papers and documents he needs.”

“Can he even ask for such favors?” Loki asked and looked over Steve again, he looked a bit shabby now: scraggly beard, his clothes didn’t fit him well, he also had a rifle hanging over his shoulder that looked too worn out.

Steve sighed and nodded, “Yeah, he is a biologist and has veterinary training. He has created antidotes and vaccines since he was a kid. He studies animal behavior and everything!” His arms went out, gesturing wildly as he spoke. It was like he was filled with hope.

“Steve,” Loki’s hand was on Steve’s shoulder, trying to calm the man down, “that town is filled with Chitauri. You and I know it. If we interrupt their migration, we will set the whole camp in danger. It won’t be clear to move in for at least a month, and then we must do it quietly and save as much ammo as possible. Have you even thought this through?”

Steve brushed of the hand and started to pace around, “Loki, this is an antidote and a vaccine we are talking about, if Thor is telling the truth then we can make an antidote for the venom and a vaccine for the disease.” He gestured to Loki’s arm. “If all of us were immune, they would not be as dangerous as they are now. We could get our old lives back, form a new society, a new world!”

Loki held up a hand, he was angry suddenly. Steve was out of his mind; they could never go back to the old days. The world had gone completely to hell in just three years, it would take decades to regain any sort of normalcy. And even the prospect of getting back to a life like before? It was terrifying, it made Loki shiver.

“Stop. Just stop.” He rubbed a hand over his face and let his fingers run through his too long hair. “Just listen to yourself, an antidote will not change everything immediately nor will a vaccine. It will take years to even get it around the world. It’s not like we can just go down to New York and say here you go and boom! new society! Everything is fine and dandy!” Loki stared hard at Steve.

He stopped and looked back at Loki, the hope Loki saw in his face faded away. Loki sighed, “Just think about it Steve. We can’t make an antidote or a vaccine safely here and test it.” Loki gestured towards the third building. “Where do you even find ingredients for something like that here?”

It started to sink in, and a silence stretched out between them. “Yeah you’re right, but we have to at least try. Me and Bucky will take a few guards and get the bag. We’ll stay out for a couple of days before we take the longer route home, just in case.” Steve looked suddenly so proud, like he was going to save the world.

“It’s a death sentence.”

“It can save thousands.”

-~*~-


	3. chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Slight warning/reminder at the beginning here, this fic will contain injuries and some gore! I have the archive warning on but I know that I sometimes forget to see the warnings. 
> 
> Also, all translations that are not next to the sentences that have other languages will be in the endnotes!
> 
> happy holidays and enjoy!

The dusk had started to fall, and a few select lamps lit up areas around camp. Loki was standing near one of the fires trying to heat up his lifeless hands after nearly four hours of standing guard out in the cold. He still had two patrol routes that he had taken for one of the others, but those were around the fields, so it didn’t matter too much.

Loki looked up at the early signs of the stars. He cursed and blessed them at the same time, cursed because the chitauri came from them and blessed them for their beauty. It was a shame such vile creatures could live amongst them.

He was so enraptured by the small stars that he jumped when someone took his hands. He looked down to see bigger hands enveloping his own, rough and pleasantly warm. Loki looked up to Thor who now stared at the sky.

“Thor?”

“You seemed cold,” Thor mumbled as he met the other’s eyes, a slight blush kissed his cheeks as he rubbed Loki’s hands between his own, trying to warm up the numb, cold fingers.

“Thank you.”

They just stood there for a while, a long while. With Thor slightly rubbing at Loki’s hands and Loki desperately trying not to think about how pleasant it truly was, and how warm his hands felt for the first time in forever.

“I heard you were a biologist,” Loki eventually said. He pried his hands away from Thor’s grasp, as much as he hated to do it. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

Thor sighed and stood, so he faced the fire and crossed his arms. He wore a big jacket now and had his hair in a bun near his neck. It was so low that some few hairs escaped the bun and framed his face. “You never asked about my past, so I just let it slide.”

Loki waited a bit, holding his breath a little before deflating. He didn’t want a sob story. He hated to hear the horrors other people had experienced, and he hated to hear the pain people he cared for had been through. But, this was different. He bit the inside of his cheeks and asked, “I do now, tell me about your past Thor.”

It took a few moments, the question hung heavy in the air as Thor clutched his hands in the fabric of his jacket. “As you know already, I grew up and lived in Sweden: me, my mom, dad, brother and sister. Good people really, a pain sometimes, but good, always there if you needed them. We lived at this sort of farm thing, it was more of an institution for animals. Mom, dad and I are certified veterinarians and biologists.” He paused and looked down at his shoes, “We studied mostly animal behavior, but then I caught an interest in antidotes and vaccines that could be produced by animals and their venom or poison when I was 25. So, we introduced that into our research, and we did really well. We even produced some good antidotes against some venomous snakes. We also produced a handful of vaccines for some diseases.”

Thor chuckled to himself and a small smile graced his lips, “We got known for our research around the world and got a lot of opportunities to research species not native to Sweden. I have been to Australia more times than I can remember. But then the invasion started…”

He paused again and the smile vanished. Suddenly, he looked so scared, so hopeless. “Sweden didn’t get hit at all in the beginning, us Swedes just watched it all go down: Japan going off the radar, the internet being completely cut off, so many places in Africa and Asia just getting destroyed. It was like everything happened overnight and the world was flooded with deadly creatures. The militaries just couldn’t manage to kill them off.”

The last part made Loki scoff a little bit. The military killed _everything_ , but they kept coming back from god knows where. Loki’s thoughts were interrupted as Thor continued, “I think somewhere in the third month of the invasion that people from the UN and state officials got together to try to find a way to make the chitauri less dangerous, so they reviewed records of all scientists who worked with venom and poison or infectious disease and established a project to send all of these scientists across the ocean to a ‘safer’ place in America where they could research for an antidote and a vaccine.”

Thor stopped and looked at Loki. Loki kept looking forward as he listened, but he kept wringing his hands together.

“I declined along with mom, dad and Baldur. But, Hela went with the idea and was sent off with a boat overseas. It went well for a long time for us. We lived relatively sheltered, and we had a lot of livestock and farms around to sustain the people who still lived there. But when two years had passed, a guy came in with a high fever. Often, we treated people for mild injuries or illnesses since we had some medical expertise. So, mom and dad hooked him up to an IV to get some fluid into him. He was sweating like crazy and writhing around in the bed. We thought maybe he caught a very bad flu or something.”

“Mom was sitting next to him while me and dad made the rounds outside. Baldur was at a neighboring farm to help out with some cows who had strange marks on them. My mother ran outside to get me and dad. If I remember correctly, she said he suddenly just got up and started to scream. Then the guy jumped through a window and ran towards us.”

Thor’s voice was a pitch higher than usual before he went silent and hugged himself tighter. Loki knew what bad memories were like, “I don’t remember much, but the guy just attacked dad and then mom. Lucky for me, I had a knife on me, but it was too late for my parents. The man’s shirt had been torn from the knife and I saw the bite on his stomach: black and a lot of the skin tissue was dead. When Baldur returned, we got in contact with the state officials to get us over to America.”

Loki nodded along. He heard the grief in Thor’s voice. He remembered Thor’s face when he mentioned his mother way back then when they sat in the church. He hadn’t thought about it then, because he hadn’t cared one bit. But now, he cared, maybe too deeply for his own good. Thor’s face had been nearly empty, caught in a glimpse of a bad memory. Loki now knew why, Thor parents had died, and right in front of him.

“Baldur and I got on the boat with a few others and a bunch of soldiers: young soldiers, newly recruited. When we got off the boat, we got in contact with people from a quarantine zone and we started traveling towards the lab location. Though we had no contact, no messages, nothing from the scientists.” Thor continued, and Loki listened. The murmur of Thor’s voice was soothing.

“We travelled for two weeks before we got attacked by some of those chitauri. It all happened so fast, Baldur got bit and he turned crazy after just a few minutes. He started shooting around himself. I got out, ran away, and got hopelessly lost,” Thor sighed and stretched his arms towards the fire, the light danced through his fingertips. “I tried to get back, but I couldn’t find any of the others. After a while I decided to go towards New York, because I heard on the boat that some of the soldiers were going there to a quarantine zone. I started to walk and tried to navigate using old maps I found in cars and road signs.”

A silence followed, Loki tried thinking back to his arrival to America, images of too young soldiers blipped through his mind. Boys who tried to act like men, girls who tried to act like women and those in between who tried to act like adults. His own face amongst the images.

_Are you a man Loki? Are you? Can you protect everyone even if you still sleep with the light on?_

“How long were you alone?” Loki’s face scrunched up a bit, trying to think if Thor had said anything about that. He tried to do the math in his head, and nothing added up.

“6 months.” His hands went down into the pockets of his jacket, moving as he probably was toying with something in it. His voice was a bit shaky. His whole body was tense when Loki looked more closely at him. “Met some here and there.”

“How did you end up in Orness?” Loki gestured towards the gate, “We are far from New York.”

Thor shrugged before a smile spread across his lips, “I said I _tried_ to navigate,” he chuckled before he looked down at his feet. He kicked a pebble, “I got in with a little group of people who were going to a place where they heard the military frequently went out to. A couple of days in, we got to a small town. It was dusk when we arrived and it was at that point in the evening that you barely saw anything. Every color was just gray. The others got a bit freaked out and I volunteered to see If the place was safe.” One of his hands came out of his pocket and grasped his scarred arm, rubbing it slightly.

“I walked for maybe thirty minutes before deeming the place safe, turned around and there, barely four meters in front of me was one of those things. I panicked and I started to run, the chitauri got the better of me and tripped me. It bit me in the arm before I managed to throw it off me and beat it with a stone.” The fire crackled and an ember shot out of the flames, dancing in the wind as it cooled and fell towards the ground in front of Thor’s shoes. “I couldn’t go back to the others. I had to find a place where I could just lay low and wait it out. Thought I could at least hide my bag I had with me so someone could stumble across it once I was gone. I had seen the storm clouds early that day so I got in one of the least destroyed houses and hid the bag so it didn’t get wet. Then I sat down and waited.”

It was all too familiar for Loki: the crushing feeling of looming death, the fear of what you will do once you succumb. He started to chew on his bottom lip. Thor must have been terrified. Memories of his own first bite flared up in his mind: images of teeth and black skin. Loki nearly gagged.

“Got a bad fever, couldn’t move properly, felt like I had the worst flu ever. Don’t know how, but I survived through the night and the morning without any hallucinations, and then you showed up.” Thor turned. Their eyes met, and Thor smiled gently, his eyes crinkling. The light from the fire danced across his face. “I don’t think I ever thanked you for that.”

Loki smiled back, “You don’t have to.” _You have done more than enough to thank me_.

“I do so.” Thor suddenly wrapped his arms around Loki, “Thank you Loki.” He squeezed tighter. It didn’t last very long. But it was long enough to feel the warmth, long enough to awake the longing in Loki. Contact was the one thing Loki swore he never was going purposefully seek out in others. He couldn’t. But he found himself hugging back, because Thor was so different from anyone else.

-~*~-

Loki sat in the garage. A light in the corner was flickering. It was raining outside, a bit too much for people to sit outside and watch it; a bit too cold to stand guard for more than two hours. Loki had been switched with Brunnhilde.

“You can’t let all of them just go out there when we know the chitauri are on the move.” Loki’s voice echoed in the almost empty space. It only contained one car with its hood up. Steve was leaning against the wall, the rain still clung to his hair and it laid flat on his forehead.

Tony grumbled as he was trying to get the car to work again, something with the old wires that needed fixing. Loki had originally come in here because Thor was out with the hunters to check on some of the sheep. Loki had plopped down in the garage in building three where Tony usually worked on either cars or weapons, when he wasn’t indulging Strange and Bruce in some lab work.

Steve sighed and leaned his head back so it thumped against the wall. “We have to. If we can find a way to not get infected and get an effective antidote from those documents, it’s a chance I’m willing to take.”

“Oh, will you two shut it already,” Tony hopped down from where he had been leaning over the engine. His arms covered with black spots from dirt and oil. “I will not have arguing in my garage.” He then pointed towards Steve and tilted his head, “And yes sir, this is _my_ garage.”

Loki shook his head and tried not to laugh as Steve started up his spiel about the equality within camp and that everyone had just as much right to be in the garage as Tony. And Tony shot back that no one wanted to be in the garage anyway, so it was practically his.

“Tony just get the car working so we can get those documents,” Steve said with a serious tone, straightening his back and got off the wall. “I have rescheduled all the guard shifts for the next two weeks because of this whole mission. We are getting those documents.” The last sentence was directed towards Loki who had walked over to the car, and Loki knew he couldn’t argue with a determined Steve.

“Yeah, all right, I’ll have it done by tomorrow.” Tony started to herd Steve out the door. When the door closed, he spread his arms out breathing in loudly and exhaling. “Finally, some peace and quiet!”

The holes that dented the car looked a bit like scars to Loki, battle wounds and scratches in the black paint. It had been the same car that drove to the drop site. It was the one car that had the fewest problems with its battery. Loki didn’t say anything to Tony, he just stared at the holes—wounds, just like those that had littered the church wall.

It was quiet for a while. Tony had wiped his arms down with a rag and hummed as he rummaged through his box of spare car parts he had collected on the many trips to the local villages and cities. “So, just to make the whole document fight clear,” Tony looked over a wire and nodded slightly to himself, not even bothering to glance at Loki. “Steve is going into Orness with some guards to get a bag of documents that can potentially contain formulas for a vaccine and an antidote?”

“Yes.”

“And last time I checked in with Natasha, she told me that more chitauri had migrated there and were setting up camp?”

“Yes”

“So, dumbass righteous Steve is going to Orness filled with aliens, and _he_ isn’t even immune, with a bunch of other non-immune guards?”

Loki hummed an answer as his fingertips trailed along the damage, scraped by sharp claws. If it was up to him to decide where all the guards were stationed, he would have waited it out. One week, maybe, and it would be a little bit safer.

_One more week and more people die._

Tony puttered around a bit, pulling out tools from various places and humming sometimes as he found the right item. The conversation still hung in the air, still echoed off the walls, or maybe that was just Loki’s head.

Loki tasted the words, let them sort into a more organized mess in his head. _‘And he isn’t even immune.’_ He. _He._

Like a shock of electricity, the revelation hit him. Loki had been bitten twice and had nothing but scars to show for it. A partial blackish blue scar on his arm was all that remained from the intentional test. He had needed to know. 

His memories flickered. The deep scar still ached at the edges.

Bitten twice…

_The sun had been warm, the camp was quiet still as the morning sun peaked over the treetops. Loki was packing up his backpack, water bottles, first aid kits, some canned food. If he didn’t have to leave, he would have called it idyllic._

_One of the few things he had to do, as a duty to the camp, was to go to the villages nearby to find refugees and help the ones in need. It was a special order from Steve. A special order that had killed the last person to attempt it. Steve didn’t think Loki knew that, but he knew. He had heard about it during lunch from one of the women sitting on a table next to his usual spot._

_His arm still ached. The bandages had been taken off, and it didn’t hurt anymore. But it ached, a deep ache he could only describe as similar to the soreness after a harsh workout._

_How long had he been here?_

_Before, he used to have a small notebook where he scratched in with a pencil which date it was. Just in case everybody else forgot when society came back, a vague hope that one day he would just check his phone for the date._

_Now, he only had a sense of how many days, or weeks he had been here. He guessed four weeks, a safe number he assumed. It was the same number his address ended on, a familiar number in the endless unfamiliarity._

_The car he drove was a manual, he had only gone to one driving lesson with a manual before switching to automatic. It was rusty, the engine sometimes made a funny noise as it converted fuel to power._

_No one had said goodbye to him. They only looked on as they had woken up to the roar of a car engine starting. They stared as he tried to gracefully shift gear from neutral to first. For him, it was embarrassing. For them it was a longing to have the freedom of an actual working car._

_The roads weren’t cleared. He maneuvered as best as he could through the cars scattered across the road. It was weird driving in the other lane, like another car was going to speed towards him because he was breaking the law._

_When he met the little girls and their father on a farm close to the village Orness he still had the slight Norwegian accent._

_One thing survival teaches you, is that you definitely learn from mistakes. It was a stupid mistake to leave the engine on as he tended to one of the girl’s fever inside the barn, checking her over to see if she was bitten. She was maybe six. The father had stopped him from lifting her shirt, and accused Loki of being a pervert as he hysterically bundled his daughter to his chest. The man was murmuring Swedish nonsense to his daughter who wailed at the raised voices._

_And he had made an even stupider mistake. He switched from English to Norwegian, trying to explain that she could have been bitten. The father didn’t want to understand. He started to yell even more, this time in Swedish and more personalized towards Loki. He screamed until he calmed and started to cry._

_The man wept as he soothed his sick daughter to sleep with a lullaby, reminding Loki even more of his own brother. Loki had looked away and walked to the other side of the barn where the older daughter was. She was maybe seventeen._

_She was frozen in fear when he reached her. He looked where she stared. His fear came roaring back to life as he saw the three chitauri looking over his car. They were sniffing the air, making noises Loki could describe as taken from a sci-fi movie. Humans hadn’t been too far off when it came to alien noise._

_Three mistakes had he made. The two others didn’t even matter as he grabbed for his rifle. Military service did something to a man. It did something to Loki. He had been thrust into the military. He had a crash course on how to use a couple of weapons before being shipped off to America, just a few months after the news blared that extraterrestrial life had entered the earth’s atmosphere. The military had taught Loki to always be armed, always be alert and, most importantly, don’t make stupid mistakes._

_He had fucked everything up._

_Maybe it was fate's way of saying, 'man up,' like all other people in Loki’s life. Maybe it was just poor luck that he had placed his rifle on the other side of the room and simply forgot he put it there rather than let it hang around his shoulders._

_Even if it was a bunch of maybes, he had still fucked up. He was going to die. All of them were going to die: from the youngest sick daughter to himself. They would die at the claws and teeth of aliens._

_He had not wanted to die from his mistakes._

_His legs acted of their own accord. The oldest daughter had screamed, and the father had bolted up to help her. Loki had picked up the rifle as the barn doors were pushed open from the outside. Adrenaline drowned his fear and he made it to the other side of the barn faster than he thought possible. His hands were shaking as he clicked the rifle in place and took aim. Nearly waiting for the order to fire._

_He shot two, but the damage was already done. The father and oldest daughter laid on the bloody ground. The rifle had jammed as he tried to shoot the last one. The Chitauri lunged towards the sick girl. Before Loki knew what was happening, he jumped in front of her. It was a desperate attempt to save at least one person._

_What is it like being bitten again in the span of just a few weeks in the same place, by an alien with dark—nearly black—venom that carried a sickness that made you into a monster? It hurt._

_The pain was so intense, it drowned everything else out. You could feel the thick liquid seeping in under the skin. The utter terror of death loomed large in the corners of your mind. survival instincts kick into high gear, desperately trying to survive._

_Loki had managed to reach for his knife tucked in his belt. He had stabbed the creature in the stomach and it let go of his arm. Loki stabbed it twenty more times just to make sure it knew it was dead._

_He was on his knees, breathing so hard he was shaking. The adrenaline still in his veins and every sense dialed up to max. He heard a weak whine from the young girl, nearly forgotten, behind him. Loki crawled towards her, pain shooting through his body as he laid down beside her. She was barely breathing. Her lips were dry and her cheeks were pale. She closed her eyes. She was too sick._

_“Pappa?” Her voice was barely there._

_Loki just nodded, before saying a weak, “ja.” He didn’t care; she deserved peace. All other things seemed so far away._

_“Vaggsång,” (lullaby) her breath evened a bit out as she seemed to slip into a more unconscious state._

_But Loki didn’t care. He tried to remember. He tried to remember the way his brother had sung to his newborn daughter. The words were hummed in the beginning before he managed to remember them correctly._

_“Hvem kan seile foruten vind_

_Hvem kan ro uten årer_

_Hvem kan skilles fra vennen sin_

_uten å felle tårer?_

_Jeg kan seile foruten vind_

_Jeg kan ro uten årer_

_men ei skilles fra vennen min_

_uten å felle tårer…”_

_The last words fading, he checked her pulse. He confirmed she was dead before dragging himself to his backpack. He tried to bind his arm. It was a struggle to get to his feet. He swayed on his legs. They seemed too long and too weak._

_He had managed to get in the car. With the engine still sputtering, he had put it in reverse, and he started to drive. He tried not to think of the pain, or his foggy vision. He just drove towards camp, hoping desperately that he was immune enough to at least return the vehicle._

“Hey earth to Loki!” Tony grabbed his shoulder, making Loki jerk away and reach for his belt. He always had a knife on him.

Tony snatched his hand away, like it had been burnt.

“Calm down.” He nonchalantly turned around and walked back to little table he had placed next to the car. “I tried talking to you, but you seemed a bit occupied.” He picked up a wire cutter and started to lean over the engine.

“Sorry.” Loki looked around himself. He counted ten things he could see and breathed slowly a couple of times. “I should go with them and get those documents…”

Tony shuffled back to his feet and met Loki’s gaze. “I’m not Steve. I can’t say you need to, but think about it. Steve is sometimes blinded by the need to save the world. You’re not. You can slip in and out without dying that easily, fewer casualties.”

Loki nodded, mostly to himself. He felt scared— scared in a way that he didn’t want to move from his spot on the concrete next to the wounded car. But he had to. He had to save at least one person.

He looked around one more time to make sure he had his things, dragged on his jacket that he had put on the counter, and he ran out with a half-hearted goodbye to Tony. He zeroed in on Steve who was talking to Natasha in front of the entrance of building one.

The rain was still pouring, Loki was determined. Steve saw him, saw his face and braced himself for another discussion. He gestured for Natasha to leave. “Loki…”

“No, let me speak first.” He held up a hand and stood right at the edge of the entrance, droplets of water hitting his head. “I want to switch with one of the guards on the mission.”

Loki thought about Thor, and how he had wanted to go back into Orness, the day after he got bit, to get those documents. Loki had said no, Thor wasn’t fit to fight then, but Loki was. He had always been. Three years of experience, both in the military and as a guard here. Loki didn’t just want to save one person. He wanted to be the person who came back with the documents, and proudly give them to Thor so Thor could save more people. See the joy on Thor’s face, maybe even get one more hug…

He stopped thinking, tried to square his shoulders, look more intimidating, more manly.

_Try to act like a peacock showing off its feathers, maybe that will impress them._

Steve raised an eyebrow, crossing his arms. “Why the change of heart?”

“I’m immune. We have tested it twice already. It would be one less person to worry about.” Loki wanted to add _fewer casualties,_ but maybe that was adding too much fuel to the fire. He could still die.

The rain was cold, it snuck its way under his clothes, sliding against his hair and into his neck and down his spine. He clenched his teeth so he wouldn’t shudder. Steve looked away, thinking it over, his arms dropped down his sides and he shook his head. “You’ll switch with either Sam or Bucky. We travel out tomorrow at dawn if the car is fixed. You can skip your evening shift and get some sleep.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> translation:
> 
> Who can sail without the wind  
> Who can row without oars  
> Who can be separated from a friend  
> Without shedding tears?
> 
> I can sail without wind  
> I can row without oars  
> But I can’t be separated from my friend  
> Without shedding tears
> 
> Lullaby of Swedish origins, but here is the Norwegian version since I grew up with it. Its called “Vem kan segla förutan vind» 
> 
> (Also a little side notes, vaccines and antidotes take way longer than some few years to make but in this universe we ignore that)


End file.
